Dark Soul (2)
Quiet.
Got it.
Being able to read thoughts had its advantages.
It had proven useful countless times so far—when he’d hidden in the grass and picked enemies off one by one, or when he’d tossed a sleep bomb in the split second after drawing an opponent’s attention away.
And even now.
Fortunately, the Lion King still hadn’t noticed the intruder.
He was leisurely patrolling the royal palace, strolling along with all the composure of a monarch on a casual inspection.
So. How was he supposed to chip away at more than a hundred million HP?
Why not just kill it?
Do you really think that’s possible?
It was a little inelegant, but in a situation like this, hit-and-run tactics were the best option.
If he kept jabbing away and then retreating before the counterattack landed, he could wear the enemy down safely.
Of course, that wouldn’t keep working forever.
Kim Jun rummaged through his subspace pouch.
There’s still one sleep bomb left.
You’re using that again?
Obviously.
One of the core systems in Dark Soul’s floors was vital strike.
When an enemy was incapacitated—when it was knocked down, asleep, or completely defenseless—targeting specific parts could deal several times the normal damage.
I’ll go first.
Got it.
Kim Jun drew a deep breath.
Then he moved, careful and quiet, slipping along the shadow of the floor.
The marble pillars planted throughout the arena served as perfect cover.
Watching the Lion King’s movements, he studied the pattern.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
Five steps left, then five steps right.
The routine was so mechanical it might as well have been programmed. He kept repeating the same route over and over.
Thankfully, that part’s the same as before the regression.
You regressed?
Yeah, yeah. Don’t read my mind whenever you feel like it.
I’m fine with that.
…;
Putting force into the balls of his feet to muffle his steps as much as possible, Kim Jun approached.
Step.
The Lion King’s massive back drew closer and closer.
Shing—
Carefully, Kim Jun drew Dragon Eater. A faint red aura leaked from the blade.
Thud—!
“Ghk! W-who—!”
The sharp tip of the sword slipped precisely through a gap in the armor.
Hot blood ran down the blade.
Clang—!
The Lion King swung his enormous axe, but Kim Jun had already retreated to a safe distance.
HP: 93,281,050 / 100,000,000
With a single ambush, he had dealt nearly seven million damage.
Now!
Got it!
Whoosh—!
Andras rose and hurled the sleep bomb.
The bottle arced through the air and flew toward the Lion King’s feet.
Crash!
The vial shattered on the floor, and purple smoke billowed upward.
Fssssssss—
A sweet, grotesque fragrance filled the boss room.
“Who’s there! Come out!”
The Lion King roared, his voice thick with rage.
Ba-bam, ba-bam-bam!
The grand boss music swelled through the chamber, the signal that the real battle had begun.
But—
“Ugh… why… am I… sleepy…”
The Lion King’s voice began to slow.
His enormous body swayed.
The purple smoke seeped through his nose and mouth, poisoning his consciousness.
“How dare—”
Thud.
At last, the giant body crashed to the floor.
Condition applied: Sleep
Duration: 10 seconds
The effect lasted only ten seconds.
“Andras.”
“Got it!”
From behind, Kim Jun drove Dragon Eater into the exact center of Raugar’s back, and Andras carved into the beast’s body with Shisan Hyeolhae.
Shhk-shhk-shhk—!
Shhk-shhk-shhk—!
A series of attacks aimed with absolute precision at the vital point.
Through the gaps in the black iron armor, hot blood erupted like a fountain.
-12,847,320 HP
-11,592,184 HP
HP: 69,560,546 / 100,000,000
More than twenty million damage in just ten seconds.
It’s going to wake up now…
As he stepped back to a safe distance, Kim Jun thought it over.
From the memories of his previous regression, the Lion King always woke from sleep in a berserk state and charged straight ahead.
The standard strategy was to use that pattern, make him slam his head into a wall, and then strike his weak point again.
“Ughhhhh…”
The giant body began to twitch.
Three seconds until the sleep status wore off.
Kim Jun had already prepared his next move.
The moment the Lion King woke up, he would dodge the charge, then get into position to bait the collision with the wall.
“Grrrrr…”
But something was different.
The growl was unlike the one from his previous life—lower, more dangerous, and somehow… intelligent.
Sleep status removed!
“How dare you… ambush me?”
The Lion King slowly pushed himself upright.
There was no raging charge like Kim Jun had expected.
Instead, a pair of cold, calculating eyes looked back and forth between Kim Jun and Andras.
Something’s… off.
The Lion King Kim Jun remembered from the regression was a beast through and through, a predator ruled entirely by instinct.
But the eyes staring back at him now held unmistakable intelligence.
“This time… I won’t miss.”
The Lion King slowly rotated the massive axe in his hands.
Even his movement, even his stance—none of it was something Kim Jun had seen before the regression.
After their first clash, Kim Jun was certain of it.
It’s completely different.
The Lion King before the regression had been a predictable beast.
He charged when enraged, counterattacked when struck—nothing but a simple chain of patterns.
But the Lion King standing before him now was different.
He was cautious as if painting a careful trap, cunning as if laying a snare.
He waited for Kim Jun to dodge, then cut off his escape route in advance; he even started learning Andras’s attack pattern.
The second exchange made that even clearer.
When Kim Jun tried to circle around the side, the Lion King twisted first to prepare for it, and when Andras sent Shisan Hyeolhae flying in, he anticipated the angle ahead of time and caught it on the thickest part of his armor.
He’s learning.
After the third and fourth exchanges, the situation got worse.
All the wasted motion vanished from the Lion King’s movements.
He stripped away every unnecessary action and began using only the most lethal attacks.
It was as if he had studied Kim Jun’s combat style and forged a custom response specifically meant to counter it.
And now—
Kwa-ga-ga-gak—!
The Lion King’s arm swung like lightning. Claws, elbow, then the crack of a tail whipping through the air. All Kim Jun could see was a single red line.
Whoosh—!
He rolled backward in haste.
The floor split vertically, cracks spidering across the stone.
By now, he had been fighting the thing for an hour.
The HP bar had barely been cut in half, while both Kim Jun and Andras were beginning to run dry on mana.
“Master. Be careful. This one isn’t ordinary.”
“Yeah.”
What was worse was that the Lion King kept evolving.
Shh-shh-shh—!
It wasn’t a single strike. It was a five-hit combo.
On the fourth hit, the speed changed; on the fifth, the tail’s trajectory twisted off rhythm at an odd angle.
It was a new pattern they hadn’t even seen in the previous exchange.
Detect flashed pale and hazy, warning him of danger.
Three lines etched into the air.
Shh-shh-shh—
“Kgh…!”
A claw wind passed close enough to graze his side, scraping a little flesh from him.
Andras lunged half a step forward. The red blade of Shisan Hyeolhae unfurled, carving a thin arc.
The blood-colored line cut through the air and struck at the gaps in the armor.
Crk-crk—!
The grain of the armor only rippled faintly; it didn’t even leave a deep scratch.
“Master! This bastard’s tougher than he looks!”
No, it wasn’t toughness. It was intelligence.
The Lion King was calculating Andras’s attack angles and taking the hits on the thickest part of his armor.
This won’t work like this.
There was no point in doing nothing but running and dodging.
His HP was in the hundred-millions. He would never bring it down with evasion alone.
Besides, the longer this dragged on, the stronger the Lion King became, while Kim Jun and Andras grew more exhausted.
He had to block with parries, then strike the opening.
But the enemy learned too quickly for that.
“I didn’t want to use this yet.”
The world of Dark Soul was Floors 18 and 19.
If he’d had his way, this was something he’d saved for the 19th-floor boss.
But for reasons he couldn’t explain, the Lion King’s rank had risen, and his patterns were evolving in real time.
The old strategies from the regression had become worthless, and learning the new ones would take hours.
He didn’t have that kind of time.
So then—
“Deus Ex Machina.”
The name Kim Jun called was—
“Valderion.”
Sword Saint Valderion.
30 seconds of the Sword Saint’s Domain is deployed.
Within the domain, all enemies are stripped of evasion and defense.
Valderion’s swordsmanship will dwell within the user for one hour!
Wooooong—!
The space seemed to fold over itself by a layer. His breath sank deeper, and the pounding of his heart aligned with the tremor of the outside world.
The sword’s tip began to resonate. It felt as though the seams of time were being pulled taut.
“I’m going.”
He twisted his heel into the floor and set his waist and shoulders in a single line.
In an instant, the sword went first, and his body followed.
Clang—!
The first parry.
The claw was knocked away.
The vibration ran up the hilt, but the blade didn’t waver.
───!
The second slash.
A crack ran across the black iron pauldron.
It works.
Shhh—!
Pa-ga-ga-gak—!
Clang—!
The third, fourth, and fifth strikes.
Cracks spread across every seam in the black iron armor, and blood and metal shavings sprayed through the air.
“GROOOOOOAR!”
The Lion King howled and counterattacked.
Claws, fangs, even a massive body check.
Every weapon the giant beast possessed came down at once.
But now, all of it was visible to Kim Jun.
The angle of the claws, the path of the fangs, the center of gravity in the body slam.
As if he had already fought this battle before, every pattern stood out in sharp, bright clarity.
I can see it.
Clang—!
Clang—!
Clang—!
The claws were broken, the fangs rebounded.
The massive body lost its balance and lurched to the side.
“Master. The opening’s huge!”
“I know.”
Kim Jun and Andras moved at the same time.
Kim Jun’s Dragon Eater drove into the nape of the neck, and Andras’s Shisan Hyeolhae stabbed into the side.
Shhhhhrk—!
A torrent of blood erupted like a fountain.
The Lion King let out a shriek and shook his body violently.
He tried to take a defensive stance, but—
With the Sword Saint’s Domain still active, such struggles were meaningless.
Kim Jun reset his stance once more.
Waist, shoulder, wrist. Every motion linked together into a single straight line.
“Dragon Slash.”
The greatsword cleaved down through the air.
Kwaaaang—!
A colossal sword strike carved across the Lion King’s head.
The black iron helm shattered to pieces. Red eyes burst apart, and the monster’s massive body began to collapse.
Thud—!
The impact was strong enough to shake the arena.
The Lion King collapsed face-first onto the floor.
Boss “Lion King Raugar” has been defeated!
Items acquired: “Black Iron Armor,”“Lion King’s Claw”
“Huu…”
Kim Jun exhaled slowly, but the brief rush of victory faded almost immediately.
When he checked the dropped items, his brows tightened on instinct.
Useless.
Black Iron Armor fell far short of Dragon Skin, and the claw weapon didn’t even compare to Dragon Eater.
Its shape alone was disappointing. It was so bulky it was almost embarrassing to call it a blade.
At least it might be usable for a brawler like Choi Doheon.
“What an annoying rule.”
Muttering under his breath, he lowered his mana gauge.
It was empty.
Skills he could normally fire off repeatedly were limited here to a single use.
Recovery speed was less than half, and potion effects were cut in half too.
The harder he fought, the more suffocating it became. It felt like battling with his hands and feet tied.
“And I’ve got to do this all over again.”
Kim Jun rested the greatsword on his shoulder.
Instead of any sense of accomplishment from bringing down the Lion King, a sigh escaped him first at the thought of the battles still ahead.
But he couldn’t stop.
This was Dark Soul territory.
A trial ground where brute stats meant nothing, where only pure skill kept you alive, and a moment’s carelessness meant death.
“I can’t afford to waste time like this on Floor 19, either.”
“Is there a way?”
“Of course.”
Kim Jun looked around the palace, then turned his gaze to the wall behind the throne.
It was a space he had found by chance in his previous life.
And the faint sign carved into the floor there had said—
This way lies a weak point.
Kim Jun walked behind the throne and knocked lightly against the wall.
Tap.
The hollow sound of striking empty air.
Just as I thought.
He knocked again, harder this time.
Shrrr—
Suddenly, the wall dissolved like heat haze and vanished.
A false wall concealed by magic.
A narrow passage stretching into the darkness was revealed.
“That’s where the weapon for clearing Floor 19 easily is.”
“Another cheat, Master.”
…;
Kim Jun and Andras stepped into the narrow passage.
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